From the crowd, a fellow in tattered clothes with disheveled hair stepped onto the arena, one step at a time.
He made his way onto the arena step by step, his back bent like an old tree bowed beneath wind and frost.
His clothes were tattered beyond measure, a grayish-brown cloth robe wrapped around his body, its original color impossible to discern.
The robe was riddled with countless holes.
Those holes varied in size.
The large ones were as big as a fist.
The small ones were only a fingertip wide.
They exposed the skeletal body beneath the robe.
His skin was an unhealthy waxen yellow, stretched tight over his bones, every rib clearly visible and countable.
They resembled rows of bamboo strips stretched beneath a sheath of skin.
His collarbones were deeply sunken, with two deep hollows at his shoulders, which were so thin they could barely support the shape of that tattered robe.
His hair lay in a tangled heap atop his head, like a clump of withered grass scattered by the wind.
Dust and debris clung between the strands, which were a mixture of gray and white; it was impossible to tell whether their color was natural or the work of passing years.
The strands varied in length, the longest hanging to his shoulders and the shortest barely an inch long.
They resembled a patch of wild grass scorched by wildfire, tangled without any semblance of order.
His face was gaunt, his cheekbones jutting like two small hills above deeply sunken cheeks.
His skin was covered in furrow-like wrinkles, which crisscrossed his thin face like dried riverbeds.
His lips were cracked, their corners turned slightly downward, and a tangled tuft of gray-white beard sprouted from his chin, its hairs likewise uneven in length, like a handful of